The state Division of Motor Vehicles' planned headquarters move from Raleigh to Rocky Mount is on, based on a House budget proposal released Friday that also includes a new tax on Uber and other ride-sharing companies, a new fee on plug-in hybrid vehicles and some tweaks to state transportation policy that environmentalists like.

The DMV move has been planned for some time, but it needs funding to go forward, and state employees concerned they'll have to commute from Raleigh to Rocky Mount have opposed the move.

Other WRAL Top Stories

But Gov. Roy Cooper supports it, and now the House budget includes $1.2 million to lease the former Hardee's headquarters in Rocky Mount for DMV offices.

The lease would start in February 2020, according to the budget proposal. Funding escalates to $2.5 million in the second year, and the House budget includes an additional $5.6 million in one-time moving expenses for the division.

The budget would also have the DMV look for new locations, in Raleigh, to house the state license plate office that has been co-located at the headquarters on New Bern Avenue. The New Bern Avenue building has a number of long-standing issues, and the legislature ordered the DMV to find a new location in last year's budget.

The House is rolling out its budget proposals by subject matter, and the transportation section also includes new fees and a tax.

Uber, Lyft and other transportation network companies would see a 7 percent tax on their gross receipts under the House proposal. The tax wouldn't hit traditional taxi services.

The House also baked proposed new registration fees for plug-in hybrid vehicles and increases for electric vehicle registration fees into the budget, making it more likely those become law. Registration fees for fully electric vehicles would go from $130 to $170, and eventually increase above $200, based on a new formula.

Plug-in hybrid registration fees would start at $87.50 and eventually increase above $137. This proposal initially included hybrids that generate electricity from their gasoline engines, but those vehicles were dropped from the language Friday morning so the fee would hit only plug-in hybrids.

The House proposal is similar to one with support in the Senate, but the House's fees are lower.

The budget would also remove a prohibition on using transportation dollars to build bicycle paths, at least in smaller towns. That's something the House has proposed before, though, and failed to get through the Senate.

"I'm trying to get my Senate brethren to understand," House Transportation Committee Chairman John Torbett said.

The change has been a priority for environmentalists for years.

The House proposal also changes state law dealing with light rail projects, keeping one cap on funding in place but removing other language that helped derail plans for a commuter line through Orange and and Durham counties.

"The light rail language is good for the future," Kym Hunter, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said.

It's likely too late for the Orange-Durham line, which was essentially canceled earlier this year, but the proposal removes a limitation that capped state funding for light rail projects at 10 percent of the project's total cost.

"It might not make much difference in reality, but the fewer limitations the better," Hunter said.

It's unclear whether the Senate will go along with this. The House, the Senate and the governor must come together on a budget before it can take effect, and this is just a piece of a plan totaling some $24 billion in state spending.

The House budget also calls for a $750,000 study on the drone industry in anticipation of creating a new corridor for it in North Carolina.

"We want to be next in flight," Torbett, R-Gaston, said.